- Zeus Sphinx Banking Trojan Arises Amid COVID-19
March 30, 2020
According to researchers Amir Gandler and Limor Kessem at IBM X-Force, Sphinx (a.k.a. Zloader or Terdot) began resurfacing in December. However, the researchers observed a significant increase in volume in March, as Sphinx’s operators looked to take advantage of the interest and news around government relief payments. First seen in August 2015, Sphinx is a modular ...
- Social Engineering Based on Stimulus Bill and COVID-19 Financial Compensation Schemes Expected to Grow in Coming Weeks
March 27, 2020
Given the community interest and media coverage surrounding the economic stimulus bill currently being considered by the United States House of Representatives, we anticipate attackers will increasingly leverage lures tailored to the new stimulus bill and related recovery efforts such as stimulus checks, unemployment compensation and small business loans. Although campaigns employing themes relevant to ...
- Cyber criminals shift focus to target remote workers
March 27, 2020
Criminals are only just getting started when it comes to exploiting the global spread of coronavirus to profit from hacking and cybercrime, and the number of attacks is likely to rise, Europe’s law enforcement agency Europol has warned. The new report on how criminals profit from the COVID-19 pandemic details the increase in coronavirus-themed attacks, including phishing emails and spam ...
- Ryuk Ransomware Keeps Targeting Hospitals During the Pandemic
March 26, 2020
The Ryuk Ransomware operators to continue to target hospitals even as these organizations are overwhelmed during the Coronavirus pandemic. Last week BleepingComputer contacted various ransomware groups and asked if they would target hospitals and other healthcare organizations during the pandemic. With the amount of strain healthcare organizations are under during this pandemic, I was hoping that ransomware operators would ...
- Paging A Joint Task Force: Cyber Defense Of Pandemic Medical Infrastructure
March 24, 2020
The ongoing global response to COVID-19 infections has become a critical public health, economic, and national security priority. The crisis has been made worse by ransomware and other disruptive intrusion incidents, threatening the continued provision of healthcare services to patients affected by the disease. U.S. Health and Human Services disclosures of known data breaches — even prior ...
- Developing Story: Coronavirus Used in Malicious Campaigns
March 20, 2020
The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is being used in a variety of malicious campaigns including email spam, BEC, malware, ransomware, and malicious domains. As the number of those afflicted continue to surge by thousands, campaigns that use the disease as a lure likewise increase. Trend Micro researchers are periodically sourcing for samples on coronavirus-related malicious campaigns. This report also includes ...
- UK Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy is looking for organisations who can support in the supply of ventilators and ventilator components
March 20, 2020
The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) is looking for organisations who can support in the supply of ventilators and ventilator components across the United Kingdom as part of the Government’s response to COVID-19. These questions aim to identify the suitability and readiness of organisations to be involved in the initiative. There are three ...
- APT36 Taps Coronavirus as ‘Golden Opportunity’ to Spread Crimson RAT
March 17, 2020
A Pakistani-linked threat actor, APT36, has been using a decoy health advisory that taps into global panic around the coronavirus pandemic to spread the Crimson RAT. The functionalities of the Crimson RAT include stealing credentials from victims’ browsers, capturing screenshots, collecting anti-virus software information, and listing the running processes, drives and directories from victim machines. The ...
- Oxford University infectious disease experts provide evidence for a coronavirus mobile app for instant contact tracing
March 17, 2020
For Immediate Release Oxford University – 17 March 2020: A team of medical research and bioethics experts at Oxford University are supporting several European governments to explore the feasibility of a coronavirus mobile app for instant contact tracing. If rapidly and widely deployed, the infectious disease experts believe such an app could significantly help to contain the ...
- Hackers attacked a US health agency’s computer system in an attempt to slow down its COVID-19 response
March 16, 2020
As the US ramps up its response to the spread of COVID-19, the Health and Human Services Department was hit with a cyberattack, according to a new report from Bloomberg. Citing three unnamed sources familiar with the matter, Bloomberg reported that the cyberattack aimed to slow down HHS computer systems Sunday night, but were unsuccessful in ...
- Dutch government loses hard drives with data of 6.9 million registered donors
March 11, 2020
The Dutch government said it lost two external hard disk storage devices that contained the personal data of more than 6.9 million organ donors. The hard drives stored electronic copies of all donor forms filed with the Dutch Donor Register between February 1998 to June 2010, officials from the Dutch Minister of Health, Wellness, and Sport ...
- Nasty phishing scams aim to exploit coronavirus fears
March 6, 2020
Cyber criminals are aiming to take advantage of fears over coronavirus as a means of conducting phishing attacks and spreading malware, along with stealing login credentials and credit card details. Cybersecurity companies have identified a number of campaigns by hackers who are attempting to exploit concerns about the COVID-19 outbreak for their own criminal ends. Crooks often use ...
- BlueKeep Flaw Plagues Outdated Connected Medical Devices
February 19, 2020
While Microsoft issued patches for the infamous BlueKeep vulnerability almost a year ago, researchers warn that almost half of connected medical devices in hospitals run on outdated Windows versions that are still vulnerable to the remote desktop protocol (RDP) flaw. Researchers said they found that 22 percent of a typical hospital’s Windows devices were vulnerable to BlueKeep. Even ...
- Matters of Life and Death: Cyber Security and Medical Devices
February 3, 2020
Concerns about the vulnerabilities of medical devices to cyber attacks are spurring a new focus on the need to protect patient safety, data and hospital systems It’s a scenario right out of a Hollywood blockbuster. Without a word of warning, medical devices regulating everything from heartbeat to insulin levels across a hospital system begin behaving erratically ...
- A Ransomware Prescription for the Healthcare Industry
January 29, 2020
To paraphrase Mark Twain, reports of ransomware’s death have been greatly exaggerated. Ransomware attacks resumed with a vengeance last year, despite conjecture by some researchers that CPU mining would overtake ransomware as a leading threat vector. Instead, the ransomware threat is stronger than ever, impacting more than 750 healthcare providers and racking up recovery costs approaching $4 billion. Some healthcare ...
- Cyber-security breaches at 67 percent of healthcare organisations last year
January 16, 2020
A survey has found that a large portion of healthcare organisations in the UK experienced cyber-security incidents last year, which were mostly due to employees sharing data. According to new research, in the last 12 months, 67 percent of healthcare organisations in the UK suffered a cyber-security incident. The data was compiled by Clearswift, which surveyed senior business decision makers ...
- Alabama Hospitals Pay Up in Ransomware Attack
October 7, 2019
An Alabama hospital system has paid its attackers in a ransomware attack that knocked its systems offline on Oct. 1. Officials at the DCH Health System didn’t say how much the hospitals paid for the decryption key, but noted that they have started a “methodical” process of system restoration. “We have been using our own DCH backup ...
- Securing the Industrial Internet of Things: Addressing IIoT Risks in Healthcare
October 2, 2019
The constant quest for prolonging and preserving human life has continually driven technologies to develop groundbreaking innovations in the delivery of healthcare services and state-of-the-art treatments. Like in many other enterprises, the industrial internet of things (IIoT) has rapidly transformed the network and data infrastructure in health and medicine. With the IIoT, medical data and information have ...
- FDA Warns Against URGENT/11 Vulnerabilities Affecting Medical Devices and Hospital Networks
October 1, 2019
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is informing patients, health care providers and facility staff, and manufacturers about cybersecurity vulnerabilities that may introduce risks for certain medical devices and hospital networks. The FDA is not aware of any confirmed adverse events related to these vulnerabilities. However, software to exploit these vulnerabilities is already publicly ...
- NHS staff issued with fresh cyber security guidance
September 23, 2019
NHS Digital has launched an organisation-wide cyber security campaign to provide staff with the most up-to-date guidance on how to avoid and mitigate potential cyber threats and data breaches. With the NHS being one of the biggest direct and indirect targets for cyber criminals, NHS Digital’s ‘Keep I.T. Confidential‘ campaign is hoping to educate the workforce on the ...

